Navigant Research Blog

First deployed in the 1970s, outage management systems (OMSs) were originally designed to incorporate outage notifications from external sources to create a map view of the outage and generate an optimized power restoration plan. Today, with smart grids revolutionizing power delivery through telecommunications and automation, OMSs have evolved into something much more sophisticated. However, it’s also become less and less clear what an OMS actually is.

Conventional OMSs understand the outage, determine the correct course of action to take, and issue switching orders for the control room operator and/or distribution management or supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. Though these systems can be linked, each one typically maintains a separate database, meaning that no system holds a complete understanding of the network state or restoration process. Now, vendors are combining outage management with distribution management and SCADA, creating what is often called an advanced distribution management system (ADMS). Incorporating a single system map and database, ADMSs can manage the engineering grid with the restoration process in real time, resulting in faster, more informed action to restore power.

Real-Time Resilience

On the communications side, new OMSs may integrate real-time, two-way information from the customer call center, the interactive voice response (IVR) system, smart meters, mobile crews, and even social media. This enables the system to update itself immediately upon the reception of outside information and exchange pertinent notifications and updates with mobile crews and customers. Again, OMSs have traditionally not managed these different communications media; they’ve only exchanged limited information with them. Now, due to proliferating open standards, the pace of this exchange has increased, and new platforms, such as social media, are increasingly involved.

Analytics solutions represent another game-changer for OMSs and grid resiliency/reliability efforts. Analytics technology combines notifications, voltage readings, and outside sources, such as weather, to inform preventive maintenance efforts, increase the accuracy of damage assessment, and improve the efficiency of the restoration plan. Analytics systems can be integrated into a combined DMS/OMS/SCADA, ADMS, or purchased as a separate overlay to enhance systems.

All Together Now

Navigant Research expects growth for standalone OMSs to decline as more utilities adopt ADMS strategies, but market demand for improved reliability and lowering outage costs will continue to drive adoption of products and services to support advanced outage management — analytics, customer engagement tools, and distribution automation. As Navigant Research’s report, Outage Management Systems, makes clear, these systems certainly aren’t what they used to be. Not only are they more dynamic, reliable, and flexible, but they’re also used by utilities in new ways that require traditionally siloed departments that manage engineering, operations, and communications to work closely together.

Not all utilities will adopt a full ADMS solution from a single vendor—it’s likely that many will configure systems in a more integrated fashion and will move toward a combined management philosophy, where outage management is one application within a platform that manages operations, engineering, and even customer engagement during events.